Behind the Mask, Underneath the Towel
by aevee
Summary: Shayera's pining away over someone, and it's not John. Slightly AU event, occurs after Wake the Dead, references to Starcrossed but several parts were disregarded. Unconventional pairing of WWHG, femmeslash.


AN:I gave up re-reading this, so there may be the odd typo or weirdly-put sentence... Point 'em out in feedback and I'll fix 'em.

He may not have been alive, but he'd been born on a Monday. It probably would have been a dreary Monday, clouds everywhere, perhaps a little rain and thunder here and there, lightening shattering the darkened sky, something like that. Sounds like it all came a movie, doesn't it?

He was pure white. Almost, anyway. His eyes were haggard, his face broad and angry. His white hair lay in a flat layer on his equally flat head, bangs matted to his forehead. One look at him and any man would run away, crying, but believe it or not, to me, his face almost seemed cute. His smile was so benign, his laugh made the earth shake as he threw back his head and bellowed, and I liked it. It warmed my heart. And there were only a handful of things in this world, maybe less, that could do that. One was him, the other, John. There was someone else too, but they threw me aside a long time ago.

Solomon Grundy never hated. He was just misunderstood, therefore targeted and attacked. Kind of like me, in a way, only I was the one who did the attacking. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and feel as though none of that ever happened. That I hadn't betrayed the world. That I wasn't a Thanagarian spy. That I hadn't ruined what John and I had. But most of all, that I hadn't betrayed her trust, that she hadn't thrown me away like I was nothing. Because I am nothing. I just don't want to admit it.

John made me feel special. Grundy gave me something, an opportunity, for me to do the same to someone else. He trusted me. Called me 'Birdnose'. He may have been simplistic, almost primitively angry in a way, but deep down, he understood things better than anyone else could. I guess it's just something naïveté has that outshines wisdom. Experience only makes you bitter about things. And there are experiences that I wish had never happened.

Why had I done it? Why hadn't I gone back and, I don't know, perhaps thrown aside my orders and helped those who had helped me? They had accepted me without question, made me one of them, and all the while I had only been there to worm through their defenses, meet my forces once they came and shatter their world inside and out. They hadn't known though, and if I'd told them before, maybe tried to redeem myself by trying to divert the attack instead of seeing it through, maybe they wouldn't have thrown me aside like I'd thrown them. Forgiveness is too much to ask for. My betrayal sears too hotly in their hearts to let them forgive me. And besides that, even I haven't forgiven myself yet.

I could hear her voice, that day, sitting with my face buried in my hands as I tried to hide from what I knew was coming. Her voice was stronger than anyone else's. Even John's. And although John had tried to defend me, even though John had tried to keep me there despite the fact that I was a liability and a traitor, I knew I had to go. Because all that was left in her voice as hatred and distrust and loathing, and I didn't to hear that when all there was before was awe and trust and friendship. Perhaps even more than that. By doing what I did, by letting a man who I didn't know anymore try to annihilate the world, by having my duty and my feelings battle each other and letting my duty win, I had shattered everything that I'd had with these people, this family that I'd had on Earth. Whether they wanted me gone or not... didn't matter. Diana wanted me gone. That was enough.

I left and to tell the truth, I've never felt so unbelievably empty. Not when I'd been transported halfway across the galaxy and into a foreign world, not when John and I got into fights, not when Diana pushed me away, never. The sky may have been as empty as before, but I used to have people that I knew who would come up and catch me if I fell. They would want to see me crash into the ground now, perhaps grinding against a few cliffs along the way. It would make them feel better, alleviate the pain of having to know that they'd trusted me, that they'd trusted someone who would have killed them without a single thought otherwise. It was true, in a way. I didn't have a single thought otherwise. I spent my whole life on Earth having thoughts otherwise. I battled that concept, and yet, I'd let it happen anyway.

Sitting down and staring at the wall makes me wonder whether it would have hurt as much had it been John who had rejected me. Would I be as upset? Would I have left as abruptly, as resolutely, as I had because of Diana's rejection? She and I had never gotten along. I was just too different from her in too many ways. She was arrogant and I hated that. I hated the way she always blamed everything on men, how to her, it seemed as though women could do no wrong, and yet all the women on Earth didn't seem good enough for her if they didn't hail from her homeland. She was so contradictory. Men were worthless, yet they were needed in order to spawn a new generation. How are they worthless if they're a sorely needed part in continuing a species? Maybe the first Amazon, who was probably naïve and soft and sweet to an extent that could have matched Grundy, maybe she had been taken advantage of by a bitter, experienced man. And that in turn made her bitter and experienced. So she had banned men from Themyscira and made all the women after her believe that men were bad, that men were evil, that they were worthless. Which, of course, leads me to the infernal question that once got Diana and I into a spat that, though neither of us admitted, wrenched at our hearts because it was as pointless as anything could ever be. We wasted exactly 9 days, 4 hours and 21 minutes waiting for an apology from the other. It came when we both couldn't stand it any longer and ran back into each other's arms without a second thought. Neither of us got a spoken apology. Instead, we got a kiss. If I'd known asking Diana about how Themyscira's population increased despite the utter lack of men could have earned me a kiss like that, I would have asked a lot more of those questions. Though I'd probably have ended up getting decked more times than getting passionately kissed.

I never understood just what we had between us. There was this wall of something, some invisible force that repelled us from each other, and then there was this rope between us that kept us tied together. And sometimes it would tighten its hold on us and bring us together into one melding mess of bodies, and we would remain like that until the morning light shone in from between the cracks and the repelling force would awaken and thrust us apart again. It was back and forth and back and forth, a horizontal yo-yo, if you will. Our fights were worse than those I'd ever had with John, than she'd ever had with Bruce, yet the moments of passion we'd shared afterward were always the most mind-numbing that this world had to offer. I guess in a way, the slaps and hits and insults were always made worth it by moans and kisses and shivering touches.

She was soft in a way that John could never be, and strong in a way that he could never approach either. Physical strength isn't what I'm talking about. I wouldn't have a waist anymore if it was because, after all, she always did lose control when she was in total bliss. Diana had something that no-one else could offer me, a love that was both femininely gentle and obscenely strong and secure. When her arms were around me, I felt safe. When her lips were on mine, I felt light. When her body melded into mine, I felt complete. I felt things that John had never, could never, make me feel. I think it's safe to say I did the same for Diana. Bruce just wasn't what she needed. Not in the way she needed me.

I don't even know whether she needed me or not. Maybe it was just one sided, and I was the one who needed her. Maybe I was just the replacement, the substitute for her body until Bruce would finally let himself touch her the way she needed to be touched. Until then, I supposed to her, I would suffice. But then I think of those times when she came to me, when she overrode my security system and barged into my room and grabbed me with all her restrained might. She would let her lips crash onto mine and we would tumble round and round until all I would feel would be her bare skin against mine, and the bed sheets pressed against my back. And then there would be moments of absolute bliss when all I would feel would be her fingers and body pressed against mine as I arched up to meet her. I loved those times because I would always feel her feminine curves against my prone body as her soft being cushioned me and wrapped me in its feather-like touch. John's muscles, honed as they were, were too hard to do something like that. I'm sure Bruce's, had she ever had the chance to feel them against her body, would be the same.

So I guess that's why I went to her first. Why I left the group of them standing there as I took to the empty skies and fought the tears away, not daring to look back, not wanting to either. I needed to be in someone's arms. John's weren't the ones I was looking for.

I found her easily. For all the months, years, eons, I spent away from her, my instincts still knew where to guide me. My heart still felt her beat. Her shower was on as I landed, wings beating inward to slow my descent, and I knew she probably couldn't hear me above the water, but it didn't matter. Catching Wonder Woman unawares didn't happen very often, and it was always a bad thing when it did, but the surprise she'd probably feel, maybe the hatred too, would stop her from decking me hard enough to throw me across the city. Hopefully.

She stepped out of the bathroom in time to catch sight of the last disappearing feather of my wing. She must have seen me disappear from view, she was Wonder Woman after all, but even if she did, she made no move to show it. Instead, she sat down in front of her mirror and began rubbing a towel through her hair. That mass of deep ebony that I loved running my fingers through as she moaned in my ear. It was then that I remembered something.

"You used to never towel-dry your hair by yourself."

She didn't jump, didn't twitch, didn't do anything. She just calmly continued rubbing the towel against those wet strands.

"Diana?"

"It's Wonder Woman. And you're breaking and entering."

She said that with the white towel draped in front of her face as it swayed back and forth because of her rubbing motions. I stepped forward slowly, sliding the balcony door shut as I walked. Reaching the spot behind Diana's simply towel-clad body, I stopped. She didn't respond in any way except to drop her hands as mine reached up and gently probed fingers against the towel and her delicate scalp.

"Mind if I do?"

No response. I began to gently massage the top of her head with my fingers, taking care to rub the strands of hair dry. Whether she enjoyed this as much as she used to was debatable. Her body didn't seem to relax like it used to, but she also didn't seem too tense, either.

"Diana?"

"I said, it's Wonder Woman."

"Do you know who I am?"

She had her eyes closed, they'd been closed since I'd started walking towards her. She didn't make a move to open them now, but I could see the movement hidden beneath her pale eyelids. The eyelids that I used to kiss when I woke up in the middle of the night to find her peaceful face mere centimetres from mine.

"Do you, _Wonder Woman_?"

She reached up with her hands and cupped mine in them. A sudden movement wrenched my entire body forward as she pulled my hands away from her head, and then she flung her head back and slammed it into my chest. I coughed several times, completely winded.

"Who do you think you are? You break into my home, try to towel-dry my hair, and now you're questioning me?"

It all seemed so ridiculously funny. I would have laughed had I not been so... stupefied. She stood up and faced me, eyes flashing, face livid. I looked up at her and fought the urge to blink.

She was so beautiful. Just as beautiful as before. So strong, yet so delicate. The towel slipped a bit and revealed more of her alluring skin and I let my eyes feast on her body. She noticed where I was looking and jerkily pulled the towel back up.

"What are you doing here?"

I shrugged.

"There was a reunion. You didn't seem to be present, so I decided to come pay you a visit myself."

"Well, I'm honoured."

The sarcasm was so solid, it almost felt like a jab at my shoulder. I shrugged it off.

"I needed to see you."

"Why? Wasn't seeing everyone else enough? Didn't they ward you off, or were they too soft to do something like that?"

"If you go into another one of your how men are worthless rants, I will scream."

The old banter came back so easily, and to me, it seemed like nothing had changed, but the way she looked at me told me she thought differently.

"I don't care what you'll do. Just get out. You're not welcome here."

"Diana..."

"I said, it's _Wonder Woman_!"

She flung the towel she had in her hand away. It slammed wetly against the far wall and then flopped onto the ground. Neither of us moved.

"Are you doing that to keep me away from you, or is hearing your name coming out of my mouth too painful?"

Her fist came flying out from nowhere, leaving me no time to brace. I didn't register the movement until it stopped in front of my face, her knuckles touching my nose. There was a moment of tense silence before she dropped it. Her eyes were flashing.

"You're conceited. Always were."

"And you're arrogant."

"Bitch."

"Whore."

"Slut."

"Fuck off."

"Why don't you?"

I opened my mouth to answer and found it empty. She smiled smugly and crossed her arms across her chest, pushing it out slightly, pressing it up against the towel.

"Because I came here to see you."

"Well, I don't want to see you. And I said get out. What do you not understand about that?"

"Why are you being such a bitch?"

"Maybe because it would be unfair not to, seeing as how big a bitch you are."

"Fuck off, Diana!"

"Can't! This is my place!"

She sounded so deliriously happy, in a way. She never sounded like that, like she was a little petty kid, flinging insults left and right. It faded away, however, and the anger returned as she continued.

"Why can't you fuck off? Fly back to precious little Green Lantern why don't you?"

"Oh! So this is what it's about, is it? That I went to him first?"

"No! I don't care who you went to! You shouldn't even be out of whatever you were in in the first place!"

"For your information, I wasn't locked up!"

"I don't care! Go back to wherever you came from! Go back to John!"

"I didn't come from John!"

"I don't care!"

"Yes you do!"

"No I don't!"

"Yes you do!"

"NO I DON'T!"

Each shout brought us one step closer to each other. Her hands were raised, fists trembling. There were tears shimmering in her ice blue eyes as she looked down at me, face inches from mine.

"You keep saying you don't care, Diana, but you do, don't you?"

Her hands dropped in a sudden movement and they hung limply at her side. Her whole body was trembling. The fight seemed to leave her through the sigh that she let out. Her voice came out in a whisper.

"I can't feel my hands."

Slowly, apprehensively, I reached out with my own two hands and gently wrapped them around Diana's limp fists. They were so cold, yet comforting at the same time.

"Can you feel mine?"

She scoffed quietly.

"No. I haven't been able to feel them since you left."

"I haven't been able to feel anything since I left."

She took a step towards me, closing the distance and leaving me breathless as her taller form pressed against mine.

"Why did you leave, then?"

"I-," I was faltering, I could feel her breath cascading down onto my sensitive lips, "I had to. You didn't want me there anymore."

Her head dipped downward in an uncontrollable gesture that brought her lips so close to mine, I could almost taste them. I longed to taste them, to feel them, to bite them gently and make her moan. My head rose in response, but she pulled backward slightly just as our lips were about to meet.

"Don't."

She seemed to refuse what we both wanted, yet she never removed her forehead from mine. We stood there, her head bent downward so her smooth, white forehead could press against my lower one.

"Diana..."

"Don't make this any harder than it already is. You just waltzed back in here like it was nothing. Did you expect me to just take you up again?"

I shook my head gently, shaking hers along with it.

"No. But I needed to see you. I needed to feel safe. I needed this."

"Where were you when _I_ needed this, so long ago?"

"Gone."

"So it seemed."

"I needed to think things out. You didn't seem to want me there."

Diana scoffed and wriggled her fingers. It was then that I realized I still had her balled up fists in my hands. I let go and pulled my hands away only to have her hands reach out and catch mine. My fingers intertwined with hers.

"You have no idea how much I wanted you right then. How much I wanted to jump out of that room, to knock down the door and pull you into my arms and hold you and never let you go, never let anyone else hurt you like they did back then. I would have hit anyone or anything that came in our way. Even if it had been Bruce."

"Then why did you vote for me to leave?"

She pursed her lips and pressed forward, her forehead applying more pressure onto mine.

"Because... because I was being selfish."

"Selfish?"

She scoffed.

"Shayera, who was the one you went to first? Who was the one you flew to, mace raised, to save? We were all hurt, all in danger, all about to be killed. But you chose to go to a special someone first. That someone wasn't me."

"John..."

"Yes, John."

I began to pull away, but didn't succeed. One of Diana's slightly warmer hands came up and cupped the back of my head. Before I could even blink, her lips were pressed against mine.

It was soft, tender, apprehensive, in a way. It had been so long. She had reason to be apprehensive. I kissed her back enough to make her relax and loose the caution, loose the distrust, but it didn't work as well as I'd wanted it to. It would have to be enough for now.

I pulled away first, though her head followed mine until her neck refused to stretch any further. Our lips peeled away from each other slowly, as though they had a will of their own and were trying to refuse what my body was trying to make them do. Separate. I pressed my forehead against Diana's again, listening to her quietly heavy breaths. She was the first to speak.

"I was angry, Shayera. Jealous. Mad at why, after all we'd been through, after all we'd shared, why you would go and save John first. Why you would leave me to die and go save your precious John. Isn't he more capable than I am? Couldn't he have saved himself?"

I never had a chance to answer. She pressed a finger against my lips, and I took a deep breath through my nose and waited for her to continue.

"So when they called me in to vote on whether we should keep you here, I voted no. No because if you stayed, you would go with John. No because if you stayed, you wouldn't care about me anyway. No, because you didn't save me first."

Her finger slipped away as I gently kissed it.

"So you were just jealous that I liked John more than I liked you?"

"Yes. I was jealous. And selfish. I'd wanted you to myself. If I couldn't have you, no-one else could. Especially John."

"I see."

"I'm a princess, Shayera. Everything that I want, I get. I don't understand why it can't be the same in the Man's World, but it isn't. I can put up with it if it's just the little things, but this isn't one of those little things. You aren't a little thing. I just can't let John have you when I'm clearly the one who's royalty."

"I see."

Diana sighed.

"You're disgusted, aren't you."

"Hm."

"Is that a yes or a no?"

I kissed her again, softly, briefly.

"A no. Because if there's anyone I'd be disgusted with, anyone who I am disgusted with, it would be me."

She didn't have a response for that, but then again, I never expected one from her.

"I'm just surprised as to how misunderstood you are about the whole thing."

"What?"

"I would have saved you first if I'd known. If I'd stayed in the Justice League, I wouldn't have gone with John, I wouldn't have stopped caring for you."

"But you saved John first. It's a fact."

"Do you know why I did that?"

"Because you care for him more than you care for me."

"Not true, Diana. Not true."

"Then what?"

I looked up into her ice blue eyes that were gazing earnestly at me, trying to see the truth. I tried not to go cross-eyed.

"Diana, he was right in front of me. He was so close to getting his head smashed open, I could almost see the blood already. I couldn't have left him. I couldn't just stand there, watching, as he got killed. I'd already done that for millions of people, millions of people on Earth. I suppose I was just desperate to make a difference, to try to redeem myself in the most minimal way that had been presented to me."

Diana didn't answer, so I chose to continue.

"And, whether you believe me or not, I saw you."

"You... saw me?"

"Yeah. When I looked at John, I saw you. I saw your head bow down, I saw you close your eyes, I saw your head smashed open, I heard your scream. Something told me it wasn't you, but the instinct was so incredibly overwhelming. If it had really been you, I would have been there a lot faster than I'd had for John."

"You... saw me."

A chuckle welled up in my throat and I let it loose, a silky rumble that only ever presented itself when I was in Diana's presence.

"I don't see why this is such a hard concept for you to grasp, Diana."

It was then that I noticed the wetness on my cheek. I wasn't crying, the tears weren't from me, they were Diana's. Slivers of salt water dripped from her closed eyes, ran down her pale cheeks and gently slipped onto mine. It looked like we were both crying. I wanted to reach up with a hand and slip it into the small space between my face and hers to wipe away her tears, but at the same time, I couldn't bring myself to free my hand from hers. So I settled with kissing the tears away. She chuckled through a series of desperate sniffs.

"It's been so long, Shayera. So _long_. Where were you? I called out for you everyday, in my head. I called out for you out loud at night, when my dreams haunted me and I needed you there. I was always so sure you would hear me, yet you never did. Where...?"

She trickled away, fading into a soft, wet silence.

"I was hiding, trying to make myself a better person so you wouldn't be so disgusted with me."

She pulled away from me in a sudden jerk and smiled through her tears.

"I guess, in the end, none of it matters. You hid yourself to become someone I wouldn't be disgusted with. I was never disgusted with you in the first place. I was jealous and angry that you cared for John more than you cared for me. That was never the case. Right?"

I nodded, throat too tight to say anything. She was right. Diana was right, none of it really mattered in the end. It was all over. Somehow, in knowing that it all cancelled out in the end, all the disgust and fear and self-hatred I felt seemed to dim. No, I still had it in me, my hatred and anger towards myself for having put Earth and all the people I care about in such danger, but now that Diana's forgiven me... No, she hasn't forgiven me. She was never mad at me in the first place.

"Shayera..."

I looked up to see her gazing at me, eyes shining.

"I love you. I hope you know that."

I smiled and stepped forward, capturing her lips in mine. When I pulled away, I found myself lightheaded, from relief and giddiness.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. And I love you too, Diana."

She chuckled and responded, "Good. I am a princess, after all."

We stood there, in each other's arms, her hold tucked neatly beneath the folds of my wings, my hold draped around her neck. We gazed at each other and smiled. I was complete, relieved, forgiven. And she was just happy. It was all I needed.

The balcony door slid open just as my lips met hers again.

"Shayera!"

"Diana! What's going on!"

We jumped apart.

"John!"

"Bruce! I can explain..."


End file.
